


"Boing!"

by RogerStenning



Series: The Roic Files [6]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 10:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogerStenning/pseuds/RogerStenning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At Winterfair, everyone can hear you laugh - even in space!</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Boing!"

**"Boing!"**  
  
  
A Vorkosigan FanFic  
By Roger Stenning  
  
Based on the characters, situations, and universe created, set, and owned by  
Lois McMaster Bujold. The contents of this story are for personal, non-commercial  
use only. Any use of Lois McMaster Bujold's copyrighted material or trademarks  
anywhere in this story should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights  
or trademarks. This disclaimer must remain as an integral part of this file.  
The material in this story may be used/abused by other FanFic authors, provided  
that credit is given where credit is due - "Turnabout is fair play"!  
Copyright 2010, Roger Stenning.  
  
***  
  
This FanFic was inspired by the Novella  
“Winterfair Gifts” by Lois McMaster Bujold.  
  
***  
  
Many thanks to [coalboy ](http://coalboy.livejournal.com/)for the proofreading :-)  
  
***

> _In a while Lady Vorpatril returned, a pile of bright pink cloth folded over her arm. She shoved it at Roic._
> 
> _"Take these back to my nephew and tell him to hide them. Or better, burn them. Or anything, but do not under any circumstances allow them to fall into that young woman's hands again. Come back in about, oh, four hours. You are by far the most ornamental of Miles's armsmen, but there's no need to have you lurking about cluttering up Estelle's reception room till then. Run along."_
> 
> _\- From "Winterfair Gifts", by Lois McMaster Bujold_

***

  
Again, it was the night shift for Roic. He'd realised that he'd be the short straw on all the cruddy details until he got a bit of seniority - _like, off the bottom rung, belike_ , but even so, aside from the double paid week of leave after Lord Vorkosigan's wedding, he'd been on the bloody night shift for close to a year and a half, and it was really starting to irritate him; still, he got his regular two shifts off a week, and was able to maintain a form of social life with his family and friends when in Hassadar, and a semblance of a normal life when ensconced in Vorbarr Sultana, so it wasn't all that bad; even Pym had come to be if not friendly, a bit more easy about how he supervised him. He was settling in, at last, it seemed, and managing to put that damned butter bug nightmare behind him, at last... well, mostly, anyhow. However, Lady Alys Vorpatril's comment of his being 'ornamental' still chafed. He didn't think of himself as ornamental one little bit.  
  
He'd worked damned hard to get into the Armsmen contingent; he'd been hand-picked from the get-go, and he was damned proud of his achievements thus far (Bug Butter not withstanding, of course); however, working the night shift, he was certainly unlikely ever to have to display the talents and skills that he'd had to hone and master in order to get his place in the contingent – not that he was looking to, of course. Like all Armsmen, he considered a quiet, boring, uneventful shift to be a successful shift: a shift where routine  turned to complete and utter boredom was what they all aspired to in this trade. For the most part, they succeeded.  
  
Two in the morning was the time he'd chosen for his meal break this night – he varied it every night, just as the manual said “Routines should be avoided where practicable, and timings for recurring events, such as patrols, breaks, and similar, should be varied as much as possible”. He sat down in the Armsmans alcove by the main doors, opened the small locker there, and withdrew the small temperature-maintained box that the Vorkosigans' Head Cook, Ma Kosti, had prepared for him. Inside was a marvellous meal for a chilly evening: a decent beef stew with herb dumplings, and a fruitcake pudding with custard – she'd got to know what he liked within a week, of course – with the buttered wholemeal bread rolls that that he liked so much – again, made by Ma Kosti in the Residence Kitchens, daily – and settled down to eat, with a regular, almost instinctive, glance over the status monitors in front of him. He picked up the read pad that he'd brought from his room, and turned it on, making sure that the data chip was inserted. As he'd expected, it was from Sergeant Taura – the off-world routing codes in the header data had made it highly likely that it was from her, after all.  
  
Since their week together following Lord Vorkosigan's wedding, they'd sadly parted again, not knowing if they'd ever meet again, but vowing to write regularly. They'd kept the vow, and wrote on average once a month, often more than that, irrespective of return mail; as a result, the written conversations were at times disjointed, but none the less entertaining. She had a dry wit that engaged Roic, and he often found himself choking quietly to restrain a guffaw at the situations and events that she wrote to him about. They'd came to know each other well in that wonderful week, but the letters somehow seemed more intimate, despite the distance.  
  
Settling in reverie for a moment before reading her letter, he remembered his most treasured possession: a holophoto of them both at the Vorbarr Sultana Winterfair Carnival (he had prudently worn his uniform, no sense in tempting fate with the locals), stood beside a “test your strength” clapper bell arrangement; he'd managed to persuade her to come to the fair with him, and she'd seen it, and for some reason couldn't resist trying it; he'd gone first, to show her how it was done, and had scored a satisfyingly loud DONG from the bell. The stall-holder, upon learning that it was a Lady Galactic who wanted to try it next, had very unwisely told her “Don't mess about, um, lady, just smack it, awright?!”, which earned him a smouldering look of irritation from Taura a mild seethe from Roic: in the resulting action, she promptly did, indeed, smack the damn thing, as hard as she bloody could, with both arms and a humongous swing. 250 kilos bench-lift she'd said to Roic. She wasn't kidding. Soddin' hammer must've hit the clapper moving at about, oh, twice the speed of sound, Roic judged.  
  
In the photo, the clapper unit was almost buried in the dirt where it had previously stood proud on its fairly thick legs, the formerly vertically standing measuring gauge now standing at a crazy angle, with the bell lying on the ground next to it, and Roic to its side, bent double holding his stomach whooping so hard he was almost falling over, and Taura looking a little shocked at the bent steel shank of the long-handled sledgehammer in her hands, the stall holder looking on, gape-mouthed in shock. She'd belted the damn thing so hard, the clapper had smashed the bell off the top of the stand with a massive _'CLANG'_ , and sent it about ten metres into the air, before coming to ground with a rather bent-sounding ' _BOING_ ' as it landed at Tauras feet. They'd decided, merely by a glance to each other, that it might be a good time to exit, stage left, rather sharpish, like. So they did, after Roic prudently gave the man a hastily written note, and a muttered “Send me the bill, alright?”. After they got back to Vorkosigan House that evening (giggling all the way, of course), all he needed to do thereafter to crack her up was quietly say “Boing!” to her.  
  
He'd paid the bill happily, of course, grinning as he sent the payment for the repairs off through the electronic banking portal the very next day. Taura had gone Dutch with him – she'd insisted. “My swing, my bad”. She'd been snickering as she said it, of course. “ _Boing_ ” indeed!  
  
It was an excessively happy time for both of them. Pym had even allowed him to see her off-planet when she had to return to her mercenary-ing duties. He hadn't had to do that. Roic guessed that he'd still been castigating himself for the pearls. He settled down to read. An hour later, considerably cheered up (and quietly giggling at yet another description of the way she'd described another Dendarii situation), he conducted another set of rounds.  
  
As he was doing his rounds, it occurred to him, sadly, that while Winterfair was on its way again, she'd not be there, this time. However, he brightened up again: This was not to say that Winterfair could not make it to her, this time. He had an evil grin on his face as he realised what he could send her. He made a note to comm someone in Hassadar on his days off, to arrange something to me specially made.  
  
Two days later, on one of his his regular days off, he was seated in front of his comconsole. Vassily Churtov was an old school friend, who now made a living making models for museums and educational supplies companies. He was very good at it, naturally. When Roic described what it was that he wanted made, Vassily had blinked, looked bug eyed at the comm screen for a moment, and laughed as he asked “You want me to make _what?!_ ”

After he'd explained why he wanted it made, and what size he wanted the resulting model, Vassily happily agreed, and named a ridiculously low price that he described as “Mate's Rate”. Roic added a percentage to that, saying that he didn't want to rob a mate. They haggled good naturedly about it for a minute or so, and finally agreed a good price. It was delivered to Roic a week later. He duly packed it in the proper packing for interstellar freight, and popped it into the mail to Taura. It'd take about seven weeks to get to her, just in time for Winterfair. He sent a brief message off at the same time, to let her know he'd sent a physical parcel containing a training aid that she'd appreciate – a previous message from her bemoaned the lack of decent physical training aids for her on the civilian market. He grinned to himself as he left the freight office. _Training aid. Yeah, right!_

***

  
Almost seven weeks later, Taura was training recruits on the Triumph when mail call came, and so wrapped up in her duties was she, that she'd completely forgotten about the parcel that Roic said he'd sent. When the Corporal arrived in the hanger deck to give her the parcel, she'd been surprised, but when she saw the almost archaic Barrayaran Postage Stamps on it, she'd grinned, and thanked the Corporal. She put it next to her gym bag, and completed the lesson – unarmed combat, of course.  
  
She got back to her cabin, and after a shower and a change of clothes, regarded the parcel. Hmm. A bit small and well too light be be weights. Must be a hand comp of some kind, she guessed. Then she noticed the transit papers contained a hand-written note from Roic, instead of the more usual routing cards. Smiling, and with her tongue sucking a fang (her version of the more human tongue sucking the upper lip), She slit open the transparent wrapping window with a careful claw, and extracted the card.

“ _Taura -_  
  
Do not open 'til Winterfair comes around – and no peeking! Father Frost is watching!  
  
Roic”

Taura laughed out loud, remembering the fair. She had a copy of the holophoto too, and glanced over it, her grin becoming a warm, wide toothed smile, as she relaxed into her specially made chair. She was glad she'd been reminded about Winterfair in time.  
  
She consulted her data terminal, and had it convert the dates from Galactic Standard to Barrayaran. One day to go. Her door chime sounded then, and she reached her long arm over to hit the open button. Master Chief Warrant Officer Anderson was standing there. She'd taken Taura under her wing when Taura had signed articles, and they'd become fast friends in the Dendarii, and, in her role as a combat ferry and shuttle pilot,  Laureen had pulled Taura's backside out of the fire on hot extractions more times than she could count. It was a firm, close, friendship.  
  
“You forgotten it's movie night, Taura?”  
  
“Whoops! Sorry, Laureen, I got mail call today.”  
  
“Oh? Roic again?”  
  
Taura was smiling. “Yup,” she tapped the parcel twice with a claw. “Can't open it until tomorrow, though.”  
  
Laureen raised a surprised eyebrow. “Why?”  
  
“It's because of a Barrayaran planetary holiday called 'Winterfair'. You apparently exchange presents on the day, not before. Bit like a planetary birthday, I understand.”  
  
“That's quaint. Any idea what it is?”  
  
“He said it's a training aid in in the cover message a few weeks ago, but won't elaborate.” She pulled a face.  
  
Laureen grinned. “Sealed orders, huh? I can follow that. So, what did you send him?”  
  
“Well, there aren't any gift shops out here in the middle of no-where, and I can hardly ship him a weapon – all his have to be issued by the Admiral after all.” She grinned a feral grin. Laureen knew that grin. “So I sent him something fairly innocuous.”  
  
“OK, what the hell did you send him?”  
  
“A tee shirt.”  
  
“ _What?! No! That all?!_ ”  
  
“It's pink.”  
  
Laureen was almost sputtering, now. “ _PINK?!_ ”  
  
“Has the words 'Pink is a non-threatening colour' on it. Had the quartermaster print it up specially for me.”  
  
Laureen was now close to wetting herself, she was laughing so hard. She was still chuckling when they got to the hanger deck for Movie Night, ten minutes later.  
  
The next morning, Taura got up early, and opened the parcel carefully, revealing a 1:35th scale model of a very severely broken 'test your strength' gauge, with three characters beside it, perfect copies of the stall holder, Roic, and herself. Her eyes sparkled and watered, her smile was almost the width of the cabin, and she took a massive deep breath.  
  
Her neighbours in the cabins either side were woken not by their alarm clocks, but by her happy and uncontrolled guffawing.

***

  
By massive and galactic coincidence, Roic had received the parcel from Taura at the same time as she received his. It was about the same footprint as his was to her, but flat, and somewhat spongy to the touch. It had been cleared by ImpSec, who said that they weren't about to tell him what it was, as it was clearly marked “For Winterfair”. Roic grinned, thanked them and put it in his bag, as they were moving out to Vorkosigan Surleau for the week.  
  
The next day was a pleasant and quiet one for all concerned, and while he had to work that night, he had a little time to himself, so, with the other off-duty household staff, attended the lunch-time gathering 'below stairs' as the Housekeeper called the back room staff lounge there. A Terran pine tree (a small one) had been cut down, and potted into a large stainless steel bucket in the corner of the room, and with the staff and their immediate families present (it was rather crowded, to say the least) presents were exchanged. The single staff had fewer, of course, but it was a pleasant few hours. Roic opened his present from Taura last of all, and damn near fell off his seat guffawing, following which, he had to explain, diplomatically, and red faced, what it was about. All that shift, he had a massive grin on his face, and Miles, on encountering him in the lobby by the staircase, just before he turned in with Ekaterin, asked why. The resulting explanation had Miles grinning maniacally, and Roic slightly red of face, but smiling broadly.  
  
Pym, who'd heard it as he passed by, just gave a tired smile, bade good night to Roic, and could be heard muttering something about “young love” and ”t'silly season” as he shook his head, and vanished off towards his quarters.  
  
Roic snorted a laugh as Pym's muttering echoed off down the stairs, and turned to stare out of the portico windows at the snow on the ground, but all he could see was Taura's happy face, and he smiled.

_FIN_


End file.
